Beached
by witchfingers
Summary: She was just a mermaid who washed up on the shore of a hot, deserted tropical beach. And she was dying. [AU, Ban x Clayman]


A/N: I said you'd be getting more BxC from me n.n Oh, and this fic has fanart! This is the link (w/out the spaces): _http // www .deviantart. com/deviation/59080645/_

**Beached**

* * *

She was just a mermaid who washed up on the shore. And she was dying. Breathing was hard and the hot air was unforgiving, her skin was drying and the gentle waves just teased her and pushed her softly, but nonetheless more, towards the desert of arid, boiling sand. Her seaweed-colored eyes scanned the shore desperately, and from her unwet lips eventually came soft wails of help. But the crust of salt and dried blood on them made her own cries hurt her. 

Her silky silvery hair, usually the envy of the richest motherpearls, was now tangled and looked like straw. Solidified crystals of sand on her skin took away its foreign, ravishing gloss, and invited the cruel sun rays to burn the tender flesh.

Another wail left her lips, as a burlesque, tiny armlet of a wave caressed her decaying fin. The minerals the ocean water had amorously left on her body were hardening as the water evaporated, and her formerly glorious skin started to look like the coarsest clay...

He was just a fisherman walking on the shore. The unforgiving Cuban sun beat on his back, unable to get to his rebellious mop of dark hair below the ragged straw-hat. He muttered some quietened curses because a strong wave had abducted his fragile boat, and walking under the blazing midday sun, with the scorching sand getting between his sandals and his feet, was torture enough for anyone.

The horizon was desert, inhospitable, distorted by the currents of hot air that radiated from the sand and raised to the immaculate blue sky. He glanced at the green sea.

Countless shells and fish bones cracked below his feet and joined the rustling song of the waves as they cleaved calmly against the pristine, white seashore. He wiped the sweat off of his face with his bare, tanned hand, moving wet strands of hair from his deep seawater eyes, cursing once more his ill luck.

His feet stopped moving against his will, and he stood, expectant, his eyes scanning numerous times a protrudance on the soft sand further down the coast. He squinted his eyes, but couldn't distinguish the figure.

"Swordfish never come this close to the coast," he mused, setting off once more. "But it's too slim to be a shark. And too large to be a pike."

He glanced once more at the green, lethargic sea. "Odd," he muttered.

His feet sank in the sand and the feeling was hideous, so even if it would slow him down somewhat, he started walking over the sand that the waves soaked over and over. It felt refreshing.

"_Clay,_" he breathed, when he was closer. "...It's a... clayman."

He walked firmly until he towered over it. The still body on the sand was the color of dry mud, and smelt like those bundles of seaweed that the tide marooned on the shore.

The young fisherman knew that he wasn't seeing mirages, he knew fish when he saw them. His eyes weren't lying, especially since they were open so big. That body had a tail. A fish tail.

He bent down next to the agonizing merperson. A thick mineral paste covered almost every inch of skin or scale, thus giving him or her the appearance of being covered in clay. He smiled softly. That morning when he left his home shore in a foul mood to find his boat, he wouldn't have ever _dreamt_ of having this kind of luck. Merpeople were just a folk tale. But damn, he was sure he would never need a boat again in his life if he could get the sea being back to town. From there to La Havana, and then, to the world.

Gently, he scooped the withered body into his arms, securing it tightly.

Two generous, round breasts pushed against his toned chest and made him stop dead in his tracks, a familiar stir making him tighten his grasp on her for restraint. She moaned. His bright blue eyes widened. "_Sirena..._"

The mermaid was giving him a pleading look through her half-lidded, glazed eyes. He looked away from them, feeling shocked and guilty. He felt her shift and cry out again, and a forgotten sense of duty inside him woke up from an eternity of being idle, and moved him to take her to where the water was shallow. He got with her into the sea, rubbing carefully the places were the salt crusts were thicker and larger.

A group of colorful fish swam around them, daring to pass between his legs and tickle him slightly.

Like a flower, the mermaid started to spring back into life, her eyes never leaving his own, even when he wasn't looking at her. She allowed the young fisherman to massage her skin so gently, as the sea washed her silver hair and made it become healthy once more.

He felt like speaking, but didn't know what to say.

So he took off his tattered straw hat and placed it on her head. Her green eyes looked at him with curiosity, and after a while of uncomfortable silence, she started to laugh softly. Her slim arms snaked around his neck and pulled him underwater.

"H-hey!" he complaint as soon as he got his head on the surface. She swam around him, surrounding his frame with her beautiful fin. The tip of her tail teased his nose softly, almost making him sneeze, and her body now pressed to his back that remained under the warm water, which was shallow enough to let him sit on the sand. The mermaid brought her lips to his ear, and she whispered, "_Thank you._" Her voice was deep and melodic.

Long, slim fingers touched him every time in a different place, and their tips, feather-soft, trailed invented patterns all over his tough skin, his tanned chest and torso. It was relaxing, convincing. Seductive. But he didn't mind it.

"Come," she said, pulling his hand, "I want to show you something."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, "I can't trust you."

Her green eyes looked at him with curiosity.

"What's your name?" the mermaid asked.

It was his turn to look at her with uncertainty. "Ban."

"The sea is a friend to his friends, Ban," she whispered, in a soothing tone of voice. "Come, let's go."

"And you?"

She stopped pulling him. "I?"

"What's _your_ name?"

She let out a small laugh and placed her hands on his cheeks, to get a close look into his eyes, and then let him go and did a backwards loop-de-loop. "I don't have a name," she said simply, returning to his side and taking his hand once more.

"..." He smirked. "You wouldn't mind if I called you Clayman, right?"

She shook her head. "At all."

She interwove her fingers with his, both hands, and smiled. His eyes couldn't leave her figure, so surreal and perfect it made him feel undeserving. Somehow, the creature pulling him away from the land was pulling him towards the unkown, he was being tempted to leave the warm sand for a universe which had previously been clear and meassured, and now looked wild and untamed. It made him anxious.

Looking at her, though, made something inside him stir. Her green orbs seemed to glow and attract him to them. Damn her. Damn his softness. He wished he could just sling her over his shoulder and take her back to his town, but only because of thinking that, he felt he was the biggest criminal in the Caribbean.

He stood waist-length in the water, and she was submerged from her shoulders downwards, her tail ocassionally flickering with iridescent glows behind her or around him.

Clayman took off the hat he'd placed on her head and letting his hand go, she gripped his shoulders and propped her body upwards, her strong breasts rubbing against his chest. Her glossy tail shimmered in the sun as if it were made of thousands of polished pearls. He tried not to think about the close contact as she leant in an put his straw hat back on his head. In turn, he smiled slowly.

"Alright, let's go."

The sea was a whole different world. Ban's heart caught in his throat as his mind tried to analyze the situation. But if something started to fall into place, the mermaid that led the way and held his hand gently smiled, and everything went blank.

Her gleaming fins played with the water and the sun, and countless colorful fish swarm in swirls and tangled with their diluted washes.

The shore became thinner and thinner as they swam, it became far away.

He wandered if he could be truly losing himself. "_After all, she did what mermaids are supposed to do. She seduced me, from the very start. She could be very well trying to drown me right now. I'm an idiot..._"

Living the way he did, he could walk an swim with the same ease, so all his focus was placed upon his clash of opinions. Until Clayman's calm voice brought him back to reality, pulling him from his wanderings in a rather brusque way.

"Look down there," she told him, placing her hand softly on his shoulder, "It's beautiful, don't you think...?" He looked down, down past the rainbow-colored fish and sea life, and saw it.

Gleaming with the fierce sunlight, even though it was at least five meters underwater, was the largest, most beautiful seashell his eyes had ever fallen upon. He looked back at her, amazed.

"I'd never seen such a shell... Murex shouldn't look so glossy, or be so large."

She smiled, a very mysterious smile. "I know," she finally said, "No one's ever seen _it _before."

"Why haven't you gone down to get it?"

She hesitated. "I can't go there," she finally said, "It's a pike's nest."

He smirked slowly.

"I know enough of pikes," he said, quite laconically, and dove into the dark depression. Her gaze followed him mutely as he swam in and kicked a pike out of his way, followed him as he carefully held the empty, yet considerably heavy shell and secured it, followed him as he started swimming back to the surface, as he pushed his head out of the water and took in enough air to fill his abused lungs. He smiled crookedly.

"Why were you happy with just looking at this from afar?" Ban asked, handing her the beautiful seashell, which gleamed as if it were neatly polished mother-of-pearl, and was the size of two adult hands put together.

Clayman smiled, her rich seaweed eyes focused in his, in the sea, the seashell, the sky, all at the same time.

"Because it's art."

* * *

**Glossary:****_La Habana_**: Cuba's capital city.  
**_Sirena_**: Spanish for mermaid.  
**_Pike_**: kind of fish that lives in the West Indies. It's long and slim and has a long, very toothy mouth. It attacks people and fish alike, and when it bites, it doesn't let go. In the Indies it's known as barracuda.  
**_Murex_**: A family of seashell that lives in warm waters. Murex look delicate and fragile, and have long needle-like extremities. A very known variety of Murex is the "Comb of Venus", named like that because it indeed looks like a comb. I think they are usually small, and that is why Ban seems so surprised about the size. (And if you wonder how I know all that, my mum works with seashells n.n) 

**_A/N:_ I'm not too happy with the ending, and thus I may do a little epilogue or something later. But this was originally a one-shot, and until it's updated, I'd say it's gonna remain that way :)**

**Remember! R&R, and this is the link for the fanart n.n (w/out the spaces) :**

_http // www .deviantart. com/deviation/59080645/_


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